A picture map has been found that depicts Edo Castle and its surrounding areas in the early 17th century, according to the Matsue Municipal Government in Shimane Prefecture.
The castle was expanded around that time by Tokugawa Ieyasu, who founded the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603 ...

Voters in mountainous parts of western Japan on Friday began casting early ballots in a van believed to be the nation's first mobile polling booth.
With early voting for the House of Councilors election underway, the four-wheeled polling station was introduced by the city of ...

Were it not for the well-nourished faces of the passengers suffused with keen expressions of expectation and purpose, the supine bodies, unpacked food, luggage and blankets strewn across the hard flooring of the ferry's modern equivalent of steerage class resembled those of a migrant ...

A China-registered ship sank off the coast of Shimane Prefecture Tuesday morning, leaving nine people missing while five crew members have been saved, the Japan Coast Guard said, citing a rescue request it received from Chinese authorities late Tuesday night.
The Coast Guard said its ...

The prefectural assembly in Shimane Prefecture, which hosts a Chugoku Electric Power Co. nuclear power plant, has rejected an ordinance backed by more than 80,000 citizens calling for nuclear power to be phased out in the prefecture.
Critics say it is regrettable that the motion ...

The number of visitors to Izumo-Taisha, the grand shrine in the city of Izumo, Shimane Prefecture, reached a record 8.04 million in 2013 after major repair work on its buildings was completed for the first time in 60 years, the prefectural government said.
The figure ...

Japanese giant salamanders have been bred indoors for the first time in Japan, a facility in Shimane Prefecture trying to conserve the huge, river-dwelling amphibians announced.
The Mizuho Hanzake Field Museum said a 24-year-old female salamander named Sachiko was found Wednesday morning to have laid ...

With Friday the day that Japan commemorates incorporating Takeshima, a group of rocky Sea of Japan islets now controlled by South Korea, the aging residents of nearby islands have not given up hope that the disputed outcroppings may one day be returned to Japan.